What is love?

Chapter 24

    Sometimes in life, things seem great when things are truly falling apart. Sometimes in life, your world will give you what you always wanted, just to rip it all away. Sometimes you may fall in love with someone, but in the end, no matter what you do, the love can never reach. The world is a horrible place, but if you want to live and thrive, you must become the monster you fear the most.

As Annabelle cried, trying to hold onto Dimitri, Emil noticed what had happened.

    “Annabelle, we have to go,” as Emil tried to pull her off, she screamed, “no! He’s ok, he has to be ok.”

    “Annabelle, please. We must leave him,” Emil tried to hold back, but began to cry as she screamed again, “we can’t leave him, he’s ok. Look! Look, his eyes are open! He’s ok. He’s ok.” As she tried to believe, he was still there. She looked in his eyes and saw nothing, looking back and she broke down crying.

    “Let’s go Annabelle. We must leave,” as he said, he noticed she stopped fighting and allowed him to carry her away, but as she went she whispered, “my King”.

    They hopped on a horse and before they rode away, Emil looked back at Dimitri as he stood there, lifeless. He looked away as tears began to swell up and he rushed away right when the Sybrin army rode past them and over the hill. He tried to go as fast as he could, until they started hearing more roars and screams in the distance as the Sybrin finished off the rest of the Defynors.

    “Please Emil, take me back to the children,” as Annabelle said, trembling on her words.

    “Of course Annabelle. I’ll take you to the children right now,” Emil quickly had the horse speed up as they rode back to the orphanage.

    After a bit of a ride, they made it back to the orphanage and saw all the kids, Amy and Clair waiting in the front for their arrival. As she hopped off the horse, they all looked up, excited to see Dimitri until they noticed it was just them.

    One of the little kids walked up to Annabelle and asked, “where is Dimitri? Is he ok?”

    She fell to her knees and embraced the little boy in a hug as she began to break down and gently said, “he’s in a better place now. He won’t be coming back.”

    All the kids started to cry as they already knew what she meant and they went to hug them. While Annabelle sat there, she looked up and saw Clair devastated crying on her grandmother's shoulder. Emil walked up to them and Clair looked in his eyes and couldn’t hold it in and cried even harder. Emil grabbed her and held her in a tight hug trying to calm her down, but she quickly pushed him off and ran back inside. Amy followed after she told Emil if the two of them could take care of them.

    “Hey kiddos. Listen to me for just a minute. I know Dimitri is gone and we are all very upset about it, but let's think about him for a second. He would be so happy to see how much we care, but how sad he would be too, to see you all in tears. You see, I knew that guy for many years. And when I was younger, I was a huge cry baby. And you want to know what he always told me? He always told me that deep down inside there was a beast. Not some horrible beast, but a gentle one. One that would not give up, but keep fighting no matter what. I need you all to bring out your inner gentle beasts. If not for you, let's do it for him, because that would make him happy.” Once Emil stopped talking, all the kids looked at each other.

    “We have to be strong, for Dimitri. He would hate to see any of us cry,” one of the little kids said as she smiled at Emil and wiped a tear.

    “Hey, how about next week we all go around the capital and spend some time together like Dimitri wanted us to do,” Annabelle smiled as tears were still on her face and the kids cheered all together.